Amberstone Biosciences Secures $12 Million Series A Financing to Advance Tumor Microenvironment-Conditionally Activated Therapeutics Pipeline

Amberstone Biosciences, a biotechnology company with proprietary technologies in single-cell-based immunotherapy discovery platforms and conditionally active immunotherapies, today announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing round.This financing round was co-led by the venture capital arm of WuXi BioVentures Center (WuXi Biologics, 1873.HK), Kaifeng Venture Capital, and Sinovation Ventures, with follow-on investments and support from Changrong Capital and several other existing and new investors.

Amberstone Biosciences plans to leverage this financing to advance multiple tumor microenvironment-conditionally activated drug candidates in its pipeline, including bispecific antibodies and cytokine therapeutics, to the Investigational New Drug (IND) stage.

“We sincerely appreciate the strong support from both new and existing investors,”Dr. George Wu, CEO of Amberstone Biosciences“Through our conditionally activated immunotherapy platform, we aim to rapidly develop safer and more effective therapies for cancer patients. The funding, extensive expertise, and resources provided by our investors in this field will bring us closer to fulfilling our mission.”

“Viva Biotech Innovation Center has consistently been at the forefront of investing in the development of novel therapeutic approaches in oncology. Leveraging its exceptional team, Amberstone Biosciences has established the innovative AmberFlow™ single-cell discovery platform and the T-MATE™ product pipeline, representing a genuine breakthrough in therapeutic strategies for solid tumors.”Dr. Dai Han, Chief Business Officer and Head of Investment at WuXi Biology“During our discussions, we were deeply impressed by the Amberstone team’s extensive experience and expertise in cancer biology. ViaBio is delighted to partner with Amberstone and its co-investors to achieve this ambitious goal.”

Dr. Huang Xin, Managing Partner at Kaifeng Venture Capital“It is acknowledged that current T-cell immunotherapies face significant challenges within the complex tumor microenvironment of solid tumors. The Amberstone team is poised to overcome the bottlenecks of conventional approaches by leveraging its globally leading, multidisciplinary single-cell drug discovery platform to develop T-MATE molecules, thereby bringing new hope to the treatment of solid tumors. Kaifeng Venture Capital is delighted to join forces with the Amberstone team and other investors in supporting the company’s continuous exploration and advancement in next-generation immunotherapy for solid tumors.”

Wu Kai, Medical Partner at Sinovation Venturesstated, “Sinovation Ventures is committed to investing in biotechnology companies with global market capabilities. The three founders of Amberstone Biosciences possess extensive industry experience and highly complementary backgrounds. Leveraging their distinctive high-throughput single-cell functional screening platform, they can effectively enhance the efficiency and success rate of antibody screening compared to traditional methods, and have developed a series of highly novel pipeline products. We are very optimistic about Amberstone’s significant future potential.”

Following this round of financing, Dr. Xiaojia Cai from the WuXi Biology Innovation Center and Dr. Xin Huang from Kaifeng Venture Capital will join the company’s Board of Directors.

Amberstone is an emerging biotherapeutics company based in the Greater Los Angeles area of Southern California, developing novel targeted and conditionally active immunotherapies for the treatment of solid tumor cancers and other diseases. Amberstone Biosciences’ pipeline is driven by an innovative high-throughput functional discovery platform and robust expertise spanning the interdisciplinary fields of biology, engineering, and therapeutic development.

As the venture capital arm of WuXi Biology (1873.HK), the WuXi Biology Innovation Center focuses on investing in biotechnological innovations globally to provide novel solutions for unmet medical needs across multiple therapeutic areas. We are also committed to identifying startups for WuXi Biology’s investment and incubation initiatives and helping them succeed. Leveraging WuXi Biology’s extensive expertise and technological advantages in new drug development, the WuXi Biology Innovation Center provides capital and services to its portfolio companies through a model known as “Equity-for-Services.”

Kaifeng Ventures is a Sino-US dual-currency venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage technology companies, advocating a team culture of equality, transparency, sharing, and innovation. Established in 2009, the firm focuses on the healthcare and IT hard-tech sectors, with assets under management exceeding RMB 5 billion. It has provided funding and resource support to more than 100 outstanding teams and projects. Kaifeng Ventures has helped over ten high-tech enterprises successfully go public, including Cytek (NASDAQ: CTKB), Conatus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CNTB), Thrive (NASDAQ: EXAS), InnoLight Technology (300308), MEMSensing Microsystems (688286), Huaxing Zhiyuan (000008), and Aolian Electronics (300585). Meanwhile, it has empowered a large number of companies such as Taimei Medical Technology, GenomiCare, HuaKe JingZhun, Maxphotonics, and Creotech Technologies to stand out in their respective niche markets.

Sinovation Ventures is a venture capital firm founded by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee in September 2009. Focusing on the hard technology sector, it provides comprehensive startup services to help young Chinese entrepreneurs build world-class companies. Sinovation Ventures currently manages dual-currency funds totaling RMB 17.5 billion. Headquartered in Beijing, the firm has branch offices in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Shenzhen. Over the years, leveraging its specialized, technology-driven, and international characteristics and advantages, Sinovation Ventures has rapidly become one of the most influential innovative venture capital firms in China. In the fall of 2016, Sinovation Ventures established the AI Institute, with Dr. Kai-Fu Lee serving as its dean. The institute is dedicated to translating artificial intelligence research into commercial applications and cultivating talent in the AI field. This combination has established Sinovation Ventures’ unique positioning as a “TECH VC.”

As a premier venture capital firm, Sinovation Ventures primarily focuses on six key sectors: artificial intelligence and frontier technologies, robotics/automation, semiconductors/chips, enterprise software, health tech, and digital lifestyle. It specializes in investing in high-growth technology companies at the early to mid-stages, with a cumulative portfolio of approximately 400 companies to date.